A Placeto Departure

What if it were possible to touch the other side of the world?

A Place to Departure was an interactive installation that allows two people, in two distant places to connect by touch. It was created and developed by D3 commissioned by Coletivo Amor de Madre.

Photo: Pedrinho Fonseca

Beijing in China, São Paulo in Brazil and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates

The project was inaugurated at Beijing Design Week in 2014. One of the pieces was installed inside the CaoChangDi art district, and the other inside the Coletivo Amor de Madre in São Paulo. Visitors were invited to touch on its surface and when the touch was given in the same region and at the same time in both windows, it was possible to feel a gentle vibration on the glass.

Photo: Pedrinho Fonseca

Focus on people and relationships, transparent technology

The window was most visibly made with glass and wood, and had a hidden complex mechanism of sensors and actuators. The Lidar sensor monitored the perimeter, which identified and stored the coordinates of a given touch on the window surface. The data combination activated the second apparatus and the transducer inflicted a soft vibration against the glass. Each window was unique and had a pattern created by algorithms linked to the geographical coordinates of the place where it was installed at.

“It is also a way of improving life and making distance invisible, thus questioning human relationships”Olivia Yassudo

A Place to Departure united technology and design in a sensitive way, questioning how elastic our perception of what it is to establish connection, and what its intimacy can be.

Photo: D3

“A Place to Departure grants an opportunity to meet the other side of the World naturally attractive for an artist deprived of a Passport by the authorities”Anne-France Berthelon, for Next-Libération

Photo: Pedrinho Fonseca

“Can we make tech so well done that it disappears? When it happens, only the people, the ideas, and the connections between them are left.”Edson Pavoni

D3 is a digital product studio in Brazil since 2002.As a studio we build digital products for companies like Twitter, Fiat, and Google.As a venture builder we've founded startups like Bloom, Zag, and Aura.